Archive for September, 2012

Seven-inch sleeve design by Savage Pencil for Wrong Eye (1990) by Coil. • “Can you use sensory deprivation to explore ESP? And then make music from the process?” Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt of Matmos decided to find out for their new EP. Related: Occult Voices—Paranormal Music, Recordings of Unseen Intelligences, 1905–2007 at Ubuweb. Details […]

Fob watch (c. 1890) made by Gorham for Tiffany. Concluding a week of tentacular posts. I was tempted to do something about tentacle porn but that subject has already been covered here, and besides, there’s rather a lot of it around these days. Given the writhing nature of octopus limbs you’d expect there to be […]

Several months ago Polish publisher Vesper asked to use some of my Lovecraft art for a Polish collection of the author’s work. Their weighty paperback just happened to arrive during this tentacle-themed week, an event which also gives me an opportunity to mention again (how could I not?) that two of these pieces can be […]

Illustration by Robert A. Graef (1932). If the predatory octopuses of the Sargasso Sea are too mundane for you, how about an extra-dimensional Kraken named Khalk’ru which has to be placated with human sacrifice? This creature is the prime menace in A. Merritt’s Dwellers in the Mirage (1932), a novel I’m afraid I haven’t read […]

If William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’ represents the Sublime of tentacular sea fiction then The Lost Continent, a 1968 Hammer film based on Dennis Wheatley’s 1938 novel Uncharted Seas, is the correspondingly Ridiculous end of the subgenre. The Lost Continent is an irritating film for Hodgson enthusiasts since it’s still the […]

Famous Fantastic Mysteries, June 1945. Illustration by Lawrence (Sterne Stevens). Following last week’s revelation of Lovecraftian horror, I thought it might be worth demonstrating just how much the tentacle-menacing-a-ship scenario is owned by William Hope Hodgson. The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’ (1907) is one of Hodgson’s lesser novels, overshadowed by the cosmic horrors of […]

So here it is at last, the stars are right, etc. I had the idea for a Cthulhu calendar after I finished the Cthulhoid piece in January and realised I had about eight or more different representations of everyone’s favourite dreaming alien monstrosity. In gathering them together I’ve alternated between old and new works to […]

M15, The Whirlpool Galaxy photographed by Martin Pugh. The overall and deep space winner of Astronomy Photographer of the Year, 2012. • The Final Academy, the series of William Burroughs-themed events that took place in London and Manchester in 1982, will be celebrated at the Horse Hospital, London, on 27th October. Academy 23, a publication […]

Dom. Having referred this week to individual animated films by Borowczyk and Lenica here’s their ten-minute collaboration from 1959. “Dom” means “house”, with the house in question providing a vague framing device for otherwise disconnected episodes, some of which repeat themselves. It’s more of a curio than anything, most interesting (again) for the moments that would […]

Then, driven ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen’s command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47°9′, W. Longitude 126°43′, come upon a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s […]

Les Jeux des Anges. Following yesterday’s post, we can be certain that Terry Gilliam had seen Les Jeux des Anges because in 2001 he included it in a list of ten favourite animated films. Jan Lenica co-directed Dom (1959) with Walerian Borowczyk but doesn’t work on this film which is the darkest and strangest of […]

Labirynt. One of the links at the weekend was to this post about the favourite Polish posters of the Brothers Quay, a piece which included an example by designer and illustrator Jan Lenica (1928–2001). Lenica, like the Quays, was also a filmmaker who started out by producing short animations, Labirynt (1963) being one of these […]

Back in 2008 I wrote at some length about Aubrey, an excellent BBC TV dramatisation of the last years of Aubrey Beardsley’s life written by John Selwyn Gilbert, and screened once in 1982. Mr Gilbert himself added a comment to that post in which he mentioned that he’d written and directed a documentary which was […]

Another new page completed for my forthcoming Cthulhu Calendar, I decided to give this one another Latin title for maximum pomposity. “Resurgam” means “I shall rise again” which seems a fitting sentiment for the loathsome Spawn of the Stars. This piece was an improvised drawing which from the outset I wanted to leave incomplete. I’ve […]

Mala Reputación (1991) by Dogo Y Los Mercenarios. Cover art by Nazario Luque. Artist Nazario Luque was Spain’s first gay comic artist who’s also known for the drawing which appeared (without permission) on the sleeve of Lou Reed Live – Take No Prisoners in 1978. On his website Nazario says he’s been described as “Exhibicionista, solidario, […]

Oscar Wilde’s story in this adaptation is shortened to a very brisk eight minutes which utilises 3D animation and makes some smart use of period photos. The film was an animation project by UCA Rochester student Thomas Beg who also has a brief rendering of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights here. The collage approach […]

Artist Nick Kushner writes to alert me that his 2010 painting Maldoror: Satan Seated Upon His Throne has been used on the cover of a recent Russian edition of Lautréamont’s novel. Kushner uses his own blood to create his paintings, and the cover below has been created using the same material. Maldoror himself would no […]

…the growths of that garden were such as no terrestrial sun could have fostered, and Dwerulas said that their seed was of like origin with the globe. There were pale, bifurcated trunks that strained upwards as if to disroot themselves from the ground, unfolding immense leaves like the dark and ribbed wings of dragons. There […]

This edition of Elizabeth D. Renninger’s retelling of Persian folk tales dates from 1909, the tales in question being adapted for children from the epic poetry of Hakim Abu’l-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi, aka Ferdowsi or Firdusi as he’s credited here. Names translated from Persian or Arabic often vary from one book to the next, and that’s […]

Boutique art nouveau, 45 rue st. Augustin (2e arr, 1904–05). Despite being reasonably familiar with Eugène Atget’s celebrated photos of Paris, this picture of a very elaborate Art Nouveau façade is something I’d not seen until now. The photo is part of the George Eastman House collection of Atget prints, and is unusual for showing […]

De Profundis (2012). The title is nothing to do with Oscar Wilde’s famous epistle from prison, but then that should be obvious looking at my latest piece of tenebrous artwork. “De Profundis” means “From the depths” which in this case is applied to another piece with a Cthulhu theme. I made a decision earlier this […]

Coronal Mass Ejection from the surface of the Sun, August 31st, 2012. • “Most of the main parts were recorded in a single day using Vangelis’s famous technique: try to play as many synths as possible at once.” Simon Drax on the prolific musical output of Zali Krishna. The new Krishna opus is Bremsstrahlung Sommerwind, […]

Daedalus and Icarus (1615–1625) by Anthony van Dyck. The story of the doomed youth as seen via the few Icarus works at the Google Art Project. Brueghel’s famous painting is absent, unfortunately, so I won’t quote the equally famous lines by Auden either. Van Dyck gives us a golden-haired twink that Auden might approve of […]

Mention yesterday of pencil drawing prompted me to dig out this item from one of my old portfolios. It was drawn shortly after I was given a somewhat battered human skull by a student nurse (hello, Victoria, wherever you are), an object I sketched on a number of occasions before eventually making it into the […]

Against the Glass. British artist Michael Leonard received a passing mention here some time ago for his work as an illustrator in the 1970s. Since that time he’s concentrated on establishing himself as a portraitist of considerable repute, with a painting of the Queen and Spark the Corgi hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. These […]

The Passage of Palais Ferstel – Shopping Arcade, Vienna #1 by Gary Quigg. Given their enclosed nature and multiple vistas, arcades are well-suited to panoramic photography, so it’s a surprise when more examples don’t turn up at 360Cities. The ones here are recent additions from Vienna and Steyr in Austria. The Palais Fertsel is a […]

Design for the Facade of Societé Immobilière de la Rue Modern, No. 6 (1909). Drawings by French architect and designer Hector Guimard (1867–1942), the man who gave Paris those plant-like entrances to the Metro stations. The examples here can be seen in greater detail at the Google Art Project where there’s a few more of […]

Nasturtiums, Wusih (1980) by Patrick Procktor. Ian Massey was in touch last week to alert me to Patrick Procktor, Art and Life, an exhibition of Patrick Procktor’s art he’s curated at the Huddersfield Art Gallery in Yorkshire: Patrick Procktor was part of a bohemian circle in 1960s and 1970s London that also included his great […]

Couple with Clock Tower (2011) by Louise Despont. Assuming such a thing doesn’t already exist, there’s a micro-thesis to be written about the associations between the musicians of Germany’s Krautrock/Kosmische music scene in the early 1970s and the directors of the New German Cinema. I’d not seen this clip before which shows the mighty Amon […]

A great title. As usual I came across this whilst searching for something else. Something about this was familiar but I haven’t read the book, and I suspect it will be one of those where the title proves a lot more evocative than the narrative. The author was a Canadian writer, James De Mille (1833–1880), […]